‘People are to blame for supply of dirty water in many areas of city’
JALANDHAR: Following reports of contaminated water being supplied to various localities in the city, the role of Municipal Corporation (MC) Jalandhar has come under the scanner. Hindustan Times grilled Lakhwinder Singh, superintending engineer, MC’s operation and maintenance (O&M) cell.
Despite increase in complaints of dirty water and water-borne diseases from several localities of the city, the municipal corporation has been missing in action. Why?
People themselves are to blame for supply of dirty water in many areas of the city. People are using illegal water connections and submersible pumps to get water. These are the main reasons behind water contamination. We have launched a special house-to-house awareness and cleanliness drive from Thursday in a bid to make the public aware and keep tabs on old water supply connections and pipes across the city.
18 water samples that were collected in June and four samples gathered on Wednesday failed purity test. What precaution the department has initiated in this regard?
I have directed my team to identify localities and start cleaning of pipes and sewerage across the city, as there will be rain in the coming days. We are also planning to change old water supply pipes from some of the affected localities.
There are more than 20,000 illegal water connections in the city, due to which clean water get mixed with sewage, resulting in outbreak of waterborne diseases. The problem comes every year. Why can’t there be a permanent
solution to this?
We issued 500 notices to illegal connection holders this week and regularised more than 5,000 illegal connections in June. We are trying our best to prevent this illegal activity. However, in few localities people are not ready to regularise their connections because they do not want to pay anything and the result is before everyone.
The MC has not installed even a single water chlorination dozer at tubewells to purify water, which is mandatory as per the directions of the Punjab Municipal Infrastructure Development Company.
Yes, directions are there but we are helpless as we do not have sufficient funds to install chlorination dozers at tubewells. Since a dozer costs more than ` 50,000 and we have to spend in crores to install chlorinator dozers at a total of 476 tubewells in the city.
The department has also failed to conduct seasonal water test of tubewells to measure the quality of water. It is mandatory to conduct this test thrice in the summer alone. Why ?
A file for approval in this connection was sent to Chandigarh few weeks ago and we are waiting to get the nod from the authorities concerned.
People are using illegal water connections and submersible pumps to get water. These are the main reasons behind water contamination. We have launched a house-to-house drive in a bid to make the public aware of this.